ABBREVIATIONS
Add.MS.
Additional manuscript (at British Library)
A.N.
Archives Nationales, Paris
BEC
Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes
BL
British Library, London
BN (Madrid)
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
BnF
Bibliothèque National de France, Paris
EETS
Early English Text Society
nouv.acq fr./lat.
nouvelle acquisition française/latine
RS
Rolls Series
SATF
Société des Anciens Textes Français
SHF
Société de l’Histoire de France
SHP
Société de l’Histoire de Paris
TNA
The National Archives, Kew
TRHistS
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to reprint articles in this collection:
Boydell Press (1, 12); University of Coimbra Press (2); Shaun Tyas Publishing (3); Centre Européen d’Études Bourguignonnes (4); Centre d’Histoire de la Région du Nord et de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest (5); PUF (6, 7); Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne (8); Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes (9); The Institute of Historical Research, University of London (10); Alan Sutton Publishing (11); Liverpool University Press (13); Macmillan (14).
I would like to convey many thanks to the staff of Routledge who showed great patience during the lengthy process of preparing this collection. I would also like to express my gratitude to our four daughters, Catherine, Sarah, Celia and notably, Alison, who gave cheerful encouragement and hours of valuable assistance to this undertaking.
CTA March 2022
This book brings together a number of my previously published articles, which have, as their common focus, aspects of war in the late Middle Ages. A theme running through a number of them is the importance of the consideration given to those who, while not active combatants, might have a significant but all too easily disregarded role to play in the outcome of particular ‘military’ events. Until about the middle years of the twentieth century, much academic study of war, particularly as it concerned the Middle Ages, was centred within the constraints of traditional military activity. Thus one of the best known studies on the subject in English was, probably, Charles Oman’s two-volume History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, first published in 1898. When volume 8 of The Cambridge Medieval History appeared in 1936, the chapter on war, written by Oman, was still built around ‘The Art of War’. The title made it clear where the emphasis of these works was to be found.
Much influenced by the constraints of tradition, the study of war appeared to offer little by way of innovative approaches to breathe fresh life into it. Time, however, would change this, as new influences reflecting unfamiliar approaches to the study of war came to bear upon the development of medieval studies in Europe and elsewhere, with some notable effects. In 1923 the Chair of Military History at Oxford, established as early as 1909, was renamed the Chair in the History of War. Although not fully implemented until after the end of the Second World War, the change of emphasis suggests that the recent experiences of war may have contributed to a change of attitude towards a less militaristic and a more inclusive study of societies in conflict. War was to be approached from numerous points of view, often over a long period of time, as growing casts of non-military participants and their attitudes led to the acceptance of approaches more in keeping with those used by social scientists than by historians.
In this respect, a significant step forward (one of particular interest to English-speaking students of the English late Middle Ages) was the publication, in 1966, of H. J. Hewitt’s The Organization of War under Edward III, 1338–62, which opened up a number of approaches, notably the use of the term ‘non-combatant’ (civilian)1 as one whose practical influence had to be recognised and accepted. In the preface to his book, Hewitt argued that the study of war was too serious a subject to be left to military men alone. He pleaded for a broader understanding of the nature of the history of war, in which the non-combatant would no longer be a mere spectator but an essential participant ‘whose efforts to clothe, feed, arm and transport soldiers’ were seen as essential contributions to conflict which could not be ignored. The importance of the provision of logistical support had thus been authoritatively recognised. ‘Unfortunately’, Hewitt felt obliged to write, ‘the non-combatants have not interested the military historian: they do not fit into the Art of War’. Seeking a new approach, he cited Piero Pieri: ‘War cannot be studied as a closed reality … It must be linked with all man’s activities … Military history must overflow into other fields of study’. The founding of the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, at much the same time as Hewitt was advocating a new approach, marked the beginning of the life of what was to become an internationally known institution whose members represented the scholarly study of war in its many manifestations. It was time for novel approaches to exercise a right to be heard. The chapter headings of Hewitt’s book reveal a much extended view of what the history of war should be all about.2
1 H. J. Hewitt, The Organization of War under Edward III, 1338–62 (Manchester, 1966). See ‘civilians’ in the index.2 A glance at the book’s chapter headings (pp. v–vi) gives a clear indication of the author’s view of the nature of the history of war, a view developed in the preface which follows (pp. vii–viii).
The rapidity with which Hewitt’s view won support may have reflected the inclination of many historians to place the study of war within a broader context than had previously been allowed. That fact should not be ignored. Nor can the consequences which this approach will have upon the way the subject is presented to a thoughtful, book-reading public, with or without a degree in historical studies. The inclusion of the word ‘society’ in a book’s title will encourage wider interest in its contents. The extra word, which helps identity the author’s approach, is important since it serves to place the study in the broad context of an ‘every-day’ world while providing a wider background against which both the central narrative and the analytical elements of the study, as well as individuals, can be brought together. Thus individual characters are given a firm background against which they can live, act and be studied. To put it a little differently, they become genuine historical figures of their time, whose activities help us reach a better understanding of the age in which they lived.3
3 We should not be surprised, therefore, that book titles have much to tell us. Studies such as P. Contamine, Guerre, État et Société (1972); C. Allmand, Society at War. The Experience of England and France during the Hundred Years War (1973); J. Barnie, War in Medieval Society (1974) (all published in three consecutive years) and, more recently, J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe (1985); P. Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 1277–1403 (1987); D. Dunn, War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (2000) all reflect this trend, which goes counter to the more traditional approaches to the study of war in which named individuals, frequently members of a society’s (military) elite, were awarded the leading roles. The importance of the role of the (‘ordinary’) foot soldier (as Vegetius had recommended long ago) was now being more fully recognised.
In an academic environment sympathetic to the use of approaches and techniques developed by other disciplines, historians stand to benefit from using methods originally created and evolved primarily for practitioners of those other disciplines. Projects (such as those sponsored, in Britain, by the Arts and Humanities Research Council) which have encouraged the systematic analysis of specific groups of records, thus enabling historians to draw conclusions regarding, for example, the military careers of large numbers of soldiers active in war over a specific period of time, can add significantly to our understanding of what war could mean to the generations involved in it.
Central to this approach is the need to regard war as being more than the mutually hostile activities of armed forces and the often destructive effects, material and moral, exerted by soldiers wielding weapons. As writers from the ancient world liked to remind readers, and as historical reality often proved to be the case, victory was not always achieved by the army enjoying numerical superiority or the use of weapons of greater sophistication or numbers. According to Roman tradition, many of whose military principles still found favour a millennium and a half after first being established, a well-led army, drawn from the citizenry to fight as the servant of society, protector of its institutions and keeper of the peace should be regarded as a body worthy of the highest regard. To this day, the English language continues to employ the term ‘the Services’ when referring to the armed forces.
In brief, the soldier should be selected and judged according to character and ability rather than by social rank. It should be regarded as an honour to serve in the body charged with protecting society in moments and situations which threatened its stability or very existence. The study of war is further enhanced when it takes into account not only those actively engaged in fighting but also the many, such as non-combatants, who may have contributed in the form of taxation (the development of fiscal systems was closely linked to the needs of war) or of those who, in different ways, worked actively for peace. War merits being studied on a broad front and from a variety of perspectives. The survival of many forms of evidence, which may include large quantities of manuscript materials, preserved in collections both public and private, offers the opportunity of studying a long, if intermittent, period of conflict and the varied effects which these had upon the world of the time.
That war affected individuals and entire societies both positively and negatively in different ways may be taken as a given. To understand it better, there is a need to appreciate how the wider society reacted to a variety of developments, social and economic, legal, technical and moral, all associated with war.